As Trevor Noah recently quipped, the US appears ready to crown its first African dictator: Donald Trump.

Poetry either pulses with real life or it's just an aborted simulacra. There's no middle ground.

Fear knows no borders, and the terminology of hate has seeped into every aspect of life.

One cannot simply decide to write apolitical poetry, in the way one decides to drink lemonade instead of tea, it's far more subliminal than that.

Everyone wants to be open and inclusive, but nobody wants to pay for it. It's the biggest roadblock to translating living writers, especially poets.

I've heard of translators collaborating closely with their authors, sometimes even living with them for a while, but that's not me.

I can't quite see the point of poems like "Wittgenstein Goes for a Walk with A Hawk in Sherwood Forest." I know they're trying to be clever, but they're not.

I don't like poems that invent memories, I have enough of my own.

The average political poem - especially the kind that wears this label all too proudly - is both dull and full of brow-beating triteness.

Most of us have been subjected to terrible political poetry at least once or twice in our lifetimes, and so we tend to shy away from it.

When it comes to the challenges of the actual process, I soldier on as best I can, on my own.

In any election, it's important that the public perceives that the election is held fairly.

Goals are visions and dreams with work clothes on.

I think it's rather a waste of time endlessly singing the same songs every night for a year, and it's just not what I want to do.

In a certain way, you get some new tools to work with, but I don't know if it ultimately makes the creative process any easier.

[Woman's] life-long economic parasitism has utterly blurred her conception of the meaning of equality.

To roam Giddily, and be everywhere but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.

I wondered what one wore to visit a vampire. The chic red sweater set didn't go so well with my darker hair, and I was afraid it might be construed as a flirtatious invitation to color me bloodier.

Yours is... il sent comme lavande." Is that French for 'You stink'?" It means 'lavender'." Huh." She sniffed at her wrist. "I thought I smelled more like a grape Popsicle.

All I can do is hope.

You will find your way. Don't be afraid of getting stuck in some of the necessary compromises. Learn everything you can from each experience, even if something seems irrelevant to your true purpose.